For Giants, `N.y., N.y.` No Swan Song

January 26, 1987|By DAVE ANDERSON, Syndicated Columnist

For two weeks, Super Bowl XXI had been a talk show, as if Johnny Carson and David Letterman were the hosts. For the coaches and the players, questions and answers. But for all the talk, nobody knew the real answer to the real question: Which team would win, the Giants or the Broncos? And for the Giants, the burden was obvious. As a 9 1/2-point favorite, the Giants were expected to win. The burden was also on their loyalists.

``We`ve got to do it now,`` one of those loyalists was saying in the hours before the game. ``We`ve got to do it.``

And the Giants did it, winning, 39-20. Phil Simms, the most valuable player, completed 22 of 25 passes for 268 yards and three touchdowns.

At the start of the second half, Frank Sinatra could be heard singing: ``It`s up to you, New York, New York`` as their loyalists roared. And the Giants responded. In the third quarter, they opened a 26-10 lead on Simms` 13- yard touchdown pass to Mark Bavaro, Raul Allegre`s 21-yard field goal and Joe Morris` 1-yard run after Simms`s 44-yard pass to Phil McConkey on a flea- flicker.

`15 YEARS OF LOUSY FOOTBALL`

For a change, the Super Bowl started off super. Together, the opposing quarterbacks, Simms and John Elway, completed the first 13 passes of the game. And after some early mistakes, the Giants` defense finally appeared when George Martin sacked Elway in the end zone for a safety, narrowing the Broncos` lead to 10-9, the closest halftime score in Super Bowl history.

On the Giants` side of the Rose Bowl, the fashionable color was blue. Especially blue Giants` jerseys, many displaying ``56,`` Lawrence Taylor`s number. Across the field, the Bronco fans in orange jerseys resembled truckloads of oranges that had spilled into the seats.

For the Giants` loyalists, the Super Bowl finally had turned into reality after two decades of watching other teams compete in it. And of wondering if the Giants ever would.

Not long after The Fumble occurred in 1978, some fans mutinied. Some burned their season tickets. Some hired a small plane to fly over Giants Stadium, pulling a sign: ``15 Years of Lousy Football -- We`ve Had Enough.`` That led to the hiring of George Young, the general manager who sculpted the Giants into a Super Bowl team.

``What we did,`` said Morris Spielberg, chairman of the Giants Fans Committee that hired the plane, ``should be a lesson to people in America that even football fans have a right to demonstrate. We forced the change. . . . We wanted Wellington Mara to understand he couldn`t run the team anymore.``

IT`S NO MIRAGE; IT`S A MIRACLE

But for all the dazzle of the southern California sun, most Giants` loyalists still were living in the shadow of a doubt. Even as the Giants stormed to a 14-2 record during the regular season, their fans wondered if all this was a miracle or a mirage.

With more hope than hype, the Super Bowl had first crawled into the cave of the consciousness of Giants` loyalists in 1973, five seasons after the Jets had won Super Bowl III. And the following summer those upstart Jets had embarrassed the Giants, 37-14, in an exhibition game that was not an exhibition, as Allie Sherman discovered. Soon he was out as coach.

Before the 1973 season, the Giants actually were touted by some pro football people as a contender for Super Bowl VIII after an 8-6 record under Alex Webster the year before. Hard to believe now, but true. And that team did what was to come to be expected of Giants` teams. It collapsed. It had a 2-11-1 record and Webster, a warhorse fullback on the 1956 championship team, was out as coach.

After that collapse, the loyalists didn`t dare talk about the Super Bowl that, for the Giants, somehow seemed unattainable. Until Sunday when it finally happened in all its hype and hoopla.

As the Giants put on their game faces, the Beach Boys thumped out Surfin` U.S.A. and California Girls. Their neutrality prevented them from playing, Rocky Mountain High, or New York, New York or even The Jersey Bounce.

Minutes later, a loud roar greeted the Broncos, then a louder roar welcomed the Giants after McConkey, waving a towel, had run along the sideline, inciting all those who finally believed the Giants were in the Super Bowl -- finally.